The E(I) Lab Program, an entrepreneurship and innovation lab that encourages interdisciplinary collaboration of UNC-Chapel Hill graduate students, professional students, and postdocs, wrapped up its sixth cohort for solving challenges in healthcare.
The winning team, the Mental Health Matchmakers, included:
They worked on a project to test the match-making feasibility of mental health services with students who were coping with substance use disorders. “The five of us met only six weeks ago and ranked the challenge of improving mental health services as our number one choice. We learned that a barrier to access is the Paradox of Choice. One solution was to create a matchmaking platform,” said Christina Shaban, an MBA candidate at Kenan-Flagler Business School.
This experiential program was established for graduate students from various disciplines around campus to tackle unmet healthcare needs, gain firsthand training in prototype development and product design, learn about the latest methods in entrepreneurship, and receive coaching and mentorship from the Carolina innovation community.
Each cohort runs for a six month timeline to develop a marketable innovation that would serve an unmet need in healthcare. Cohort 6 was converted to a 6-week accelerated program conducted virtually to keep all participants safe during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The three teams that participated in this cohort were:
E(I) Lab hosts an experiential program that brings together graduate students, professional students and postdocs from diverse disciplines across UNC to conceive, develop and test innovative solutions to unmet needs in healthcare.
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The E(I) Lab Program provides access to various experts with the goal of removing barriers to entrepreneurship and innovation with the participants. When asked what she got out of the program, Kayla McKisky, a student at the Gillings School of Global Public Health said, “The value of diversity, collaboration, and stepping outside your comfort zone. The whole really is greater than the sum of its parts. The customer discovery process was really valuable – our platform completely changed from our first ideas. It really brought home why some ideas fail. Because they’re not catering to the wants/needs of the customers that would be using it.”
This entrepreneurship and innovation lab launched out of the Eshelman School of Pharmacy over six years ago and was the first interdisciplinary lab of its type at the time. Initially supported by the Eshelman Institute of Innovation, E(I) Lab is now managed under Innovate Carolina. Thank you to Innovate Carolina for its support of our students and their projects.
Applications for Cohort 7 will open on Monday, August 2. If you are interested in learning more, send an e-mail to Barbara Bell, the director of E(I) Lab: bmbell@email.unc.edu.
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